Theater Review: A Long Day’s Journey Into Night: A Long, Hard Close-Up Into Addiction
With addiction rates to prescription drugs rising in America, along with rates overdose a Long Day’s Journey Into Night becomes a timeless play. Each character uses their material vice to numb their spiritual pain. Only when they are inebriated do they feel the emotional relief to breather. Thanks, to its wondrous cast, viewers can understand that addiction and mental health issues are valid diseases.
Jessica Lange’s Mary Tyrone
Jessica Lange’s performance of Mary is like a head-dive into a broken spirit. She is so openly wounded that you feel her pain gushing unto you. As Mary slowly loses her mind, you begin to tussle in your chair by how real it feels. Every movement of Lange’s body exudes the turmoil of Mary, which is why you cannot help but cry at seeing her demise. She does not succumb to addiction because she was wicked. On the contrary, Lange plays Mary’s moments of light and lucidity with a charisma that makes you love her as much as her family does. No Tyrone nor viewer wishes to see Mary be lost, but that is what addiction/ mental health does: it makes you lose your light.
Michael Shannon’s Jaime Tyrone
Michael Shannon has a tall, dominant stature. When he enters the scene, you notice him just on his height. Yet, it is the bigness of his body that gives perfect contrast to the smallness his character feels. For all the bravado Shannon gives Jaime through his big mannerisms, too smart quips, and fidgety ways, the eldest Tyrone is just a hurt child in a man’s body. Shannon shines in the second act when he completely breaks down to reveal the inner demons and ugliness Jaime carries behind his wry smile. When he reveals his struggle at loving and wanting to destroy his brother, all at once, you feel a pin-drop of empathy strike straight to your soul. Everyone knows the feeling of love/jealousy. Whether it be for a friend or family member, when you see someone you love have the chance to rise heights that you cannot: you feel like dirt. Yet, this dirty sentiment comes from both being envious of someone you love and being fearful that his rise will soon mean he will not love you back.
John Gallagher Jr’s Edmond Tyrone
Edmond Tyrone is an oddly Millennial character. He is the epitome of wasted youth: that feeling of being so young but so lost, all at once. Gallagher gives Edmond the wry bitterness that many Millennials feel at not having reached and not knowing how to reach their potential. Edmond is smart, kind, and poetic. Edmond is slightly auto- biographical for writer Eugene O’Neill, whom based the play off of his own troubles at home. Yet, Edmond, literally, is stunted as many youth are and feel. His illness has left him feeling like a ghost rather than a human being. Gallagher, gives Edmond a sense of naive urgency to make his family unite through their pain before he leaves them, possibly for good. Gallagher’s performance as Edmond is an odd beacon of light. Despite, his own troubles with alcohol, like that of his brother and father, you still feel like their is some hope in and for him.
Gabriel Byrne’s James Tyrone
Gabriel Byrne’s character is a loud macho with a small pocket. Yet, you feel bad for him. What Byrne has done with his character, James, is make you pity his ignorance. He is a man that for all his desires to move forward with his life and help his family heal, has absolutely no idea of the virtue needed to do so. He is cheap, cruel, angry, and depressed, but he is also desperately in love with his family. Byrne plays this dynamic with a beautiful balance that any actor and viewer will applaud. You almost want to run on the stage and give James a life-coaching class because he has become his family’s and his own worst enemy. His encouragement of their addictions through his own struggles with alcohol and revealing his inner loathing, makes you understand how easy it is to be a hypocrite without self-notice.
The Set
Set in a 1912, Connecticut home, initially, the set feels big. Set Designer, Tom Pye creates an intricately detailed living room, of which every scene plays out. Yet, as time goes by and problems boil over, the set grows smaller to the audience. Suddenly, you understand why the Tyrone family mentions their feelings of being stifled by the house. Living in such sad spiritual conditions, has made them materially dissatisfied, as well. Lighting Designer Natasha Kye portrays the inner gloom and delusion that enraptures the family by fading the lights throughout the four act play to a point where the audience thinks they are living in a starry night.
In Total
Director Johnathan Kent has created a masterclass for mental health. Not one person can walk out of that play without feeling humbled and empathetic to anyone whom struggles with addiction and depression. We all know the darkness that pushes us to numb ourselves, but not everyone is strong enough to push back. The Tyrones are literature’s and now Broadway’s proof that being human is rough and not everybody wants to be it, a la addiction.
Long Day’s Journey Into Night Will Be Playing Till June 26, 2016 At The American Airlines Theatre.
For more information and to buy tickets Click Here. For anyone whom has suffered from or has someone they love suffering from addiction, this play will be like catharsis and understanding met to greet you.
